Steve Austin Talks WWE Tough Enough, Working As A Heel, More

Steve Austin is promoting WrestleMania 27 and Tough Enough in a new interview with IGN. In the interview, Austin revealed that each week on Tough Enough, he will select the “Bottom 3.” These will be the lowest level performers on the show. Austin will give them a chance to convince him to let them stay before eliminating one and allowing the other two to stay. Here are some highlights from the interview:

His approach to eliminating contestants: “When it’s time for me to be Stone Cold, when we go into elimination and it’s time to ask the nitty gritty questions, and they’ve got a chance to either stay or go, you know, I get on them pretty good, and I’m looking to see who I can rattle, or undo, and you know, we’ve weeded out some of the ones who really needed to go first.”

Using other wrestlers as examples to the Tough Enough contestants: “There are many guys who I’ll bring up in the course of a week. We’ll have a different superstar come by each week and talk to the kids. I’ll use myself as an example some of the time, but not all the time because you know, one of the things I’ll tell them about me is, I was never the best wrestler in the world. I was never the best looking wrestler in the world. I was never the best built guy in the dressing room. I was never the best at anything. But I had enough things and I wanted it bad enough that I made it to the top and I did what I did. But not everybody’s going to have my style. Not everybody comes from the background I come from. I use Shawn Michaels, I use The Undertaker, I use The Rock a lot, Ric Flair, my favorite pro wrestler. And Rey Mysterio came by. Some of these guys might be more in a Rey kind of mode. But I’ll use as many examples as I can, and I’ve got a bunch of them because I grew up watching this business since I was seven or eight years old.”

Being a heel vs. face: “Shoot, man, I loved being a damn heel. Something about that, just going out there and being the most despicable person you could ever be, was a real turn on for me. And I grew up a real shy kid in south Texas, and it was something for me to lean on and have fun with. But when I came up with the Stone Cold thing, I really kind of brought a gray area in to a black and white world.”

What?: “I tell you what, I would have never in a million years went up to Vince and said, ‘Hey, I’ve got this thing that I’m going to do and it’s going to make people say ‘What?’ after every pause or break in someone’s promo for the next ten years. I had no idea that even these days, when Michael Cole’s in the ring cutting a promo, if he puts that pause in there, they’ll come with a ‘What?!’ – but it’s been interesting!”